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America needs a second wave of civil rights movement. — Barack Obama

The Second Wave is a resource for legal professionals, advocates, activists, law students, and people striving to be informed critical thinkers. Posts include civil rights news, issues, and conversations from across the country; and news from Kennedy, Kennedy & Ives. Some posts will enrage you, others with inspire you, a few will make you laugh. Sign up here. Share with your friends. Join us in the fight: we can’t do this alone.

Have an idea for something we might want to post on The Second Wave? Please send it to acf@civilrightslaw.com.

Former City of Albuquerque records custodian Reynaldo Chavez recently swore inan affidavit that city officials were instructed to delete and alter body camera and surveillance videos—including videos involving the high profile police killings of Mary Hawkes and Jeremy Robertson. Kennedy Kennedy & Ives represents both families in lawsuits against the City.

Photo Courtesy: Jim Watson/Getty

The Evidence.com software, according to Chavez, allows officials at the Albuquerque Police Department to delete and edit videos that are routinely uploaded as evidence in civil and criminal cases. Chavez says that the Department has taken advantage of this capability in order to conceal misconduct by city personnel.

The City has announced that it will hire an independent investigator “to determine whether original video evidence has been properly preserved and maintained.” For details on that announcement, see the article that was recently published in the Albuquerque Journal.

KOB4 profiles the tragic killing of Nikki Bascom, a Silver City resident and mother of two who was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, Silver City Police Captain Mark Contreras, who then killed himself.

Laura represents Ms. Bascom’s family in a lawsuit against the Silver City Police Department and the Grant County Sheriff’s Office. The family has alleged that the departments protected and emboldened Mr. Contreras as he stalked, threatened, and abused Ms. Bascom with impunity for weeks prior to the killing.

Vice News profiles the recent criminal case involving two police officers who were accused of second degree murder for the killing of James Boyd, a homeless man who was camping in the Sandia foothills.

Shannon, who represented Mr. Boyd’s brother in the civil case against the city of Albuquerque, is interviewed in the article about the brothers’ early life and upbringing in southern New Mexico. The civil case settled, and the Boyd family was kind enough to donate $200,000.00 to Healthcare for the Homeless and St. Martin’s Hospitality Center, organizations that serve Albuquerque’s homeless community. Read the full article here.

KOB4 Eyewitness news interview’s Shannon Kennedy on the shooting of Mary Hawkes and the lawsuit filed by Kennedy, Kennedy & Ives on behalf of the Mary Hawkes Estate in the Second Judicial District Court of Albuquerque. See the video here.

Al Jazeera follows the Albuquerque Police Department’s (APD) 40-year history of police misconduct and department corruption. Recent events are the Department of Justice findings against the APD, victims’ stories (including that of Kenneth Ellis III represented by Shannon Kennedy and Joseph Kennedy), and police officers who spoke out and were retaliated against. This article focuses on the APD, but provides a lens for a larger understanding of how class and race issues are intertwined with history of police misconduct. Read the full article here: Albuquerque PD: a case study of police brutality.

“Bernalillo County has settled for a reported $680,000 in a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by a woman inmate who was allegedly raped by then-Metropolitan Detention Center guard Andres Verdugo in June 2014, the Journal has learned.”

In an era of civil unrest and protest over police brutality, many are calling into question the validity of body cameras worn by policemen. Initially, the cameras were meant to prevent police from performing unnecessary violence, however the history of police body cams has revealed that the devices have often had the opposite effect. Read the full article here.

The Legal Team at Kennedy, Kennedy & Ives remains humbled by the bravery of our client, Dianna Guerrero, who stepped forward to share her story of sexual assault by a police officer when she was an high school intern with the Las Cruces Police Department. Dianna’s nightmare of betrayal is one of many from across the country covered by investigative journalists Matt Sedensky and Nomaan Merchant in the AP’s three-part story: Betrayed By The Badge.

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